


While We're Still Young And Beautiful

by berlynn_wohl



Category: U2
Genre: Dialogue-Only, Established Relationship, M/M, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-07-01
Updated: 2002-07-01
Packaged: 2017-10-26 09:46:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/281579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/berlynn_wohl/pseuds/berlynn_wohl





	While We're Still Young And Beautiful

[Edge is holding a small video recording device, turning it over in his hands. Bono stands by, grinning.]

EDGE: Did you steal this?

BONO: Maybe. Does it matter?

[There isn't really any doubt that it has been stolen. The camcorder says "Zoo TV" on the side in big white letters.]

EDGE: Why?

BONO: I've just been thinking.

EDGE: That is always a preface for trouble.

BONO: Everyone's saying we're the best we've ever been.

EDGE: Spin Magazine didn't say that.

BONO: [Insistent.] _People_ are saying we're the best we've ever been. The record, the tour. We took a big risk and it paid off, and I'm just so excited. Aren't you excited?

EDGE: [Cautious] Yes.

BONO: But then I was afraid. Reg, are you ever afraid that this is the best we'll ever be? Are you ever afraid that things will never get any better?

EDGE: When times are good I try to enjoy them.

BONO: A-ha! So you will understand what I am about to say.

EDGE: What does this have to do with a Zoo Cam?

BONO: Shh. Listen. I took two cassettes as well. One for you and one for me. This tour has been very well documented, I don't have to tell you that. Bill and BP and everyone. But they're documenting Zoo TV. They're documenting a farce. I want to document me and you.

EDGE: You want to videotape us.

BONO: Yeah.

EDGE: Don't you think we spend enough time in front of video cameras?

BONO: Not like this. [He stands up and begins to undress.] This is just for us. I want us to be able to watch these videotapes years from now, when we're old and fat and wrinkled, and remember when we were young and beautiful.

EDGE: [Impassive.] You will always be young and beautiful.

BONO: Flattery will get you everywhere. [He removes his trousers.] Everywhere.

EDGE: So, what, am I just supposed to videotape you naked?

BONO: No no no, check this out. I'm gonna lie here and I want you to ask me questions. It'll be a time capsule.

EDGE: Ask you what?

BONO: Anything! We're capturing a moment. I've got a list of questions I was gonna ask you...

EDGE: I'm doing this too?

BONO: ...Do you want to use some of my questions?

[He hands Edge a napkin with his barely intelligible scrawl on it. Edge deciphers it and laughs.]

EDGE: You want me to ask you these things? I _know_ these things. Am I doing this too?

BONO: But think about it! We're capturing a _moment_!

EDGE: Why do you....we...have to be naked?

BONO: I told you. We've got to do it while we're still in good condition.

EDGE: [Sighs.] I don't think I understand what you're trying to do, but...

BONO: But?

EDGE: I'll go along with it because for some reason I trust you.

BONO: Ooo, that's good. Trust is a very important thing, for what we're about to do.

[He lays himself on the bed. Edge slips the tape into the camcorder and pulls the lens cap off. He looks through the eye-piece and sees Bono, sprawled, in black and white.]

EDGE: Ready? [Presses red button.] Okay, we're recording. You want to state your name?

BONO: My name is Bono. [Repeats, slowing the vowels.] Bahhh-nohh. [Grins.]

EDGE: What's today's date? Where are we?

BONO: It's the seventeenth of May, nineteen-ninety-two, and we're in a beautiful hotel room in lovely Barcelona, Spain. It is a gorgeous city and later this afternoon I am going to go out and enjoy everything it has to offer.

EDGE: You like Barcelona?

BONO: I love Barcelona. The Olympics will soon be loving Barcelona too, I'm told.

EDGE: What's your favorite thing to do while staying in lovely Barcelona?

BONO: I like to sit in a cafe and watch the beautiful people walk by. I also enjoy the museums. That's where the beautiful people sit and watch ME go by.

[He rolls over onto his back, still looking right at the camera, giving it a delightful full-frontal view. Edge shifts in his seat.]

EDGE: How old are you today, Bono?

BONO: I am thirty-two, going on seventeen. [Brushes his fingertips absentmindedly over his chest.] I look good for thirty-two, don't you think?...You know, people all over the world would sell their souls to get their hands on this body. I pretend like I don't think about things like that, but I do sometimes. My body is a hot commodity, but unlike my heart I'm not prepared to give it away to just anyone. Only very special people may possess it.

EDGE: [Reading off napkin] Who was the first man you ever made love to? What was his name?

BONO: [Squeezes his eyes shut and giggles.] His name was the Eeeeedge! [Rolls back onto his stomach and gazes lovingly into the camera, chin in hands.] Now _he_ is a very special person.

EDGE: How was it? The first time.

BONO: Exquisite.

EDGE: Tell me about it.

BONO: He was so wonderful. He told me we should do it in the morning, when we woke up, so I would be more relaxed. He's a scientist, you see, so he thinks about these things. I was so excited, the night before, I couldn't sleep, but he went down on me and made me come real hard and it knocked me right out. When I woke up, he'd already been up and he'd closed the curtains and made sure we'd have some privacy. We hadn't really planned on doing it, so all we had to use for lubrication was this bottle of olive oil we'd received as a gift.

EDGE: Where was this?

BONO: Rome. Nineteen-eighty-seven. It was almost exactly five years ago, actually, now that I think of it. You know I had no idea olive oil was like wine, that there were expensive vintages. Italians can make _anything_ ludicrously expensive. The bottle cost a fortune, but it wasn't very big. We used most of it. He was very gentle.

[Bono is on his side now, propped up on one arm. Edge looks Bono over with the camera, panning up and down his body, zooming in and out on random body parts; Bono's legs, one arm, the lower third of his face.]

EDGE: You enjoyed it?

BONO: Of course.

EDGE: How did it feel, to be the receptive one?

BONO: I was scared to death.

EDGE: I thought you said you enjoyed it.

BONO: I did. But that doesn't mean I wasn't scared to death.

EDGE: Did being scared make it better?

BONO: Yeah. I didn't get a hard-on until I thought about how terrifying it was, what was about to happen to me.

EDGE: Does it still scare you?

BONO: [Laughs] Sometimes. I don't have a reason to be scared. Unless I've been bad.

EDGE: What happens when you've been bad?

BONO: [Curls up in the fetal position, clutching pillow to his chest.] I don't want to say.

EDGE: [Knowing it is all for effect.] I'm sure it's alright to say.

BONO: [Staring at pillow.] Edge teases me.

EDGE: Like how?

BONO: Like, last week, he was angry with me, so he got me...he got me all worked up. On purpose. I'm on my belly and he's got two fingers in me and I'm really ready for him. I tell him to do it to me, and he just gets up and says he's going down to meet Adam at a club down the street from the hotel. He was still dressed, so he puts on a jacket and leaves. And I'm just lying there.

EDGE: [With a smile in his voice.] That's not very nice.

BONO: [Pauses, still refuses to look at the camera.] I'd been bad.

EDGE: What did you do that was bad?

BONO: I threw a tantrum. I'd had a bad day and I lost it and yelled at people who didn't deserve to be yelled at. [Finally looks into camera.] Edge said it was rude.

EDGE: And for that you got punished.

BONO: Yeah. Very effective. I watch my temper a little more now. My balls ache just thinking about that...

EDGE: When did you first find yourself attracted to men?

BONO: Well...[Laughs] I'm not really attracted to men all that much. Not that way. I mean, I love women. I LOVE women. But human sexuality is such a wonderfully complicated thing. I sort of fancied Marc Bolan when I was a kid, I think that's where it started. He's obviously not a typical guy though. He enjoyed toying with gender, like Bowie did. I wasn't like, walking down the halls at school going, "Ooo, I'd like to shag him, and him..." In fact I had a lot of in-built Catholic guilt just about the Marc Bolan thing. But I read a lot of poetry and Greek literature and I found a lot of homoeroticism and I realized just haw prevalent it was in history. There were many societies where men had homosexual experiences and it was accepted and taken in stride, and they went on to have wives and children and be regular members of society. Oscar Wilde was gay but he adored his wife and children, you know? So I said well maybe I needn't fight this. Plus I had Gavin and Guggi, and being around them I learned a lot about lines being blurred. I guess that's around the time I started to develop a sort of crush on the guitarist...

EDGE: When was this?

BONO: Around...We had just started getting real gigs. We were eighteen, nineteen. I got scared again, after I first realized it. It was one thing to say "I accept this, and I don't harbor any guilt about this," but when you actually come face to face with those feelings...Now I had this person right in front of me that I fancied. I didn't know what to do.

EDGE: It took---

BONO: I'm hungry. I'll be right back. Don't move.

For a short while the camera films the empty bed, its sheets mussed from Bono's fidgeting. He returns with a bowl of fruit he found in the other room.

BONO: I love bananas, don't you? [He takes one from the bowl.] They're very nutritious.

[He peels the banana and presses his lips to the tip, his eyes on the camera. He smiles and flicks his tongue up and down the length of the soft, pulpy fruit. Then he slowly slides it in his mouth, his lips pressed tightly around it.]

EDGE: Ah, Jesus...

[Bono slides it almost all the way out of his mouth, then takes a bite.]

BONO: [With mouth full.] So good for you.

EDGE: It...em...[Clears throat.] It took you a long time to act on those feelings you had.

BONO: Yeah.

EDGE: What did you do in the meantime?

BONO: I don't recall exactly....There was a lot of wanking, I remember that. We were in San Francisco in nineteen-eighty-one. It was the first time we'd been there. And you know if you're not from San Francisco then you know it for two things: the Golden Gate bridge and homosexuals. So....this was before anyone knew my face...So I was wandering around before the gig and I went and visited this bath-house. The bath-houses were still operating at full-tilt in those days. AIDS was just a whisper, still. So I go in to see what happens in these places, and I was horrified! It wasn't just that it was anonymous sex, because I must admit I find that intriguing.

EDGE: Appealing?

BONO: Intriguing. But these men were so brutal with one another! There was no affection at all, it was just... [Adopts American accent.] "Yeah, take it, suck that cock." I was seriously frightened. I left thinking, how could you live your life only having sex in that manner. [Long pause.] Luckily I found out that it didn't have to be that way.

EDGE: When was that?

BONO: A couple years later. Edge came to my room and we had a much more enjoyable encounter.

EDGE: Different.

BONO: Very different. It was quiet. Everything was quiet and still. It was like we were the only two people on Earth. There was a lot of touching and kissing. [Laughs.] Men complain that women are too much about foreplay and not enough about getting down to business, but then you become conditioned to that. Women train men to be tender and romantic, and I think any wise man would be grateful for that. Women do a wonderful job of keeping civilization together, 'cause I mean I saw in that bath-house what happens when men are left to their own devices.

EDGE: What about your guilt?

BONO: It was gone. There was really nothing negative about it at all. I mean, that night, I was consciously thinking, "I have another man's penis in my mouth, and it doesn't feel wrong or dirty at all." Which is...you'd assume it would at least be weird. I mean, whose idea was it anyway to lick other people's genitals? When you think about it, it doesn't make any sense.

EDGE: But you're not complaining.

BONO: Not at all.

EDGE: What did it feel like, if it didn't feel dirty?

BONO: It felt like...a secret. When someone tells you a secret, and says, "Now don't tell _anyone_ else" and you feel special because they chose you to tell it to...Men seek and claim, women consent and give. Despite any social or scientific progress we make, it is in our nature. So when a partnership is formed between two men, one of two things happens: either both men become pursuers, predators, like at the bath-houses, or else one of the men must demure and assume that female role.

EDGE: Is that what you feel you've done?

BONO: Fame did it to me long before sex did.

[There is a long pause and Bono looks into the camera.]

BONO: It's your turn. [Gets up, takes the camera from Edge, directs him to sit, seats himself, presses red button.] So, tell us your name.

EDGE: My name is the Edge.

BONO: And where are we?

EDGE: We're in a hotel in Barcelona. It's the seventeenth of May, nineteen-ninety-two.

BONO: How do you feel? You look nervous.

EDGE: I am nervous. I'm naked.

BONO: What's wrong with that?

EDGE: Well I'm not usually naked on camera.

BONO: Do you like your body?

EDGE: It's alright. I guess there's nothing really wrong with it. My attitude is, you know, it's not the most important thing. I mean, I don't like what's happening to my hair, but I just put a hat on and go about my day. [Leans back, lies on bed, hands clasped over chest.]

BONO: Who was the first man you ever made love to?

EDGE: [Smiles, rolls eyes.] His name was Bono.

BONO: Oh yeah? What's he like?

EDGE: [Looks not at the camera but directly at Bono.] He's...he's very needy.

BONO: Needy.

EDGE: Yes. But he's nice. [Sits up.] I enjoy his company.

BONO: Tell me about your first time together.

EDGE: It was quite a few years ago. We'd just done a show. I wanted to go out. I think we were planning on a pub-crawl, the whole band. But Bono told me he was feeling strange and could I keep him company in his hotel room? This was just after we could each afford to have our own room. Funny. At first we were grateful to have the space and the privacy, but we always just ended up visiting each other's rooms and crashing there. Or sometimes Bono lost his key...So I said alright, and I went up there and he said he was glad I came because he was feeling strange. And I think I knew at that point what he was getting at, so I said, Well, I've been feeling strange too.

BONO: You wanted it?

EDGE: I...I was waiting for him to take the lead. Let's just say that. He's good at taking the lead.

BONO: [Laughs.]

EDGE: So we talked for a few hours.

BONO: About what?

EDGE: Everything. Not sex. He talked about going to Ethiopia. The show that night. Stuff. But there was an obvious tension building. The things we talked about didn't get any more intimate, but the WAY we talked about them did. You could feel that we were getting closer to something.

BONO: What happened then?

EDGE: He sat next to me at the table...there was a little table there...and he kissed me. [Long pause.]

BONO: And then what?

EDGE: I don't know. It's kind of a blur.

BONO: Did you like it?

EDGE: [Rolls onto his stomach, gazing at his hands in front of his face.] It was nice. It was like a circuit being closed.

BONO: [Trying not to laugh.] A circuit.

EDGE: Yeah. Like, here's this person that, you know, I'm so close to, and I spend all this time with, and we share so much. I had that with everyone in the band, but I always had this feeling like, like he was different. I couldn't articulate it. And this thing happened, and it closed the circuit, and the light came on.

BONO: Tell me what happened next.

EDGE: We got undressed. [Pause.] We laid on the bed. [Longer pause.] For a long time we were just touching each other. I was waiting for him to take the next step, but he seemed nervous too, and I wondered if he ever would. Then, just out of the blue he started to go down on me.

BONO: How was it?

EDGE: Oh it was amazing. He knew every little spot. I came so fast. I tried to delay it but he was...insistent. I couldn't help it. And I was afraid I'd offend him. I warned him, I said, I'm gonna come soon, I'm gonna come. And I thought he'd take it out of his mouth but he didn't.

BONO: He swallowed.

EDGE: Yeah.

BONO: How much longer before you made love to him?

EDGE: Oh, a long time. [Sits cross-legged.] Months and months. I was waiting until I was sure he really, really wanted it. I don't like to trespass.

BONO: You think it's trespassing?

EDGE: If being inside another person's body isn't trespassing, I don't know what is.

BONO: What's your favorite way to do it?

EDGE: [Pause for thought.] I like it when...I lie down or sit in a chair and he gets on top of me.

BONO: Oh yeah?

EDGE: It's good because he's controlling it, so I know I'm not being too rough for him, and I can see him. All the other positions aren't that good for watching him move. When I'm on my knees, behind him, I can't see his expression, and he can't see me at all, really. When he's on his back, he's facing me but he can't move much. [He is lying down again, gazing up into the middle distance, as if imagining Bono on top of him.] But when he's on top he can do whatever he wants, and I like to watch him. And he likes to be watched. [Laughs.] He gets really frantic, and he's got no modesty in that situation, so he's groping me, he's touching himself, he's writhing and thrashing about, and he gets really loud. Once he sat on me and was turned away from me. He was wriggling up and down and I could see my cock going in and out of him....I mean, I'd seen that before, but now he was controlling it, I wasn't moving at all. I was just watching.

BONO: Did you like to see it?

EDGE: I was actually a little disturbed, but it turned me on, too, I guess. I prefer him facing the other way. I like to see my partner's face.

BONO: You like to watch their expression?

EDGE: Well not so much that as...being able to look into their eyes. [Uses two fingers to point to his own eyes and then at another invisible set of eyes.] To make that personal connection. I think sex for the sake of sex is...rude. [Shrugs.]

[Bono lingers more with the camera than Edge did. Edge's shots were measured and balanced, but Bono moves languidly over Edge's body, greedily favoring certain areas...collarbones, thighs...while neglecting others. Edge can sense Bono's lechery and it makes him stutter.]

BONO: Where is someplace you've never done it that you'd like to.

EDGE: Em...on a...on a train. I like traveling by train but I've never done anything on one.

BONO: Now tell me [Barely able to stifle laughter.] ...Tell me about someplace you've done it you wished you hadn't.

EDGE: Oh no...[Face in hands.] Oh God, that time in Amsterdam. [Composes self.] We were in Amsterdam. This is nineteen-eighty-nine. We were supposed to do three shows there, but Bono had laryngitis and so we had a couple days to just wander about. Bono said to me, We have to do it while we're here, we just wouldn't be tourists in Amsterdam if we didn't do something deviant. Which at first struck me as odd, because we'd done it so many times, in so may other cities, it didn't seem deviant anymore. So we're in this recording studio, I think David Bowie had been there that day and we hung out for a while, but before we left we passed this, like, broom closet, and Bono says, Let's go in here. And I said, Are you crazy? What if someone catches us? And he's like Yeah I know! What if! And he pulls me in and unbuttons my trousers and he's sucking me off and I'm scared to death and I'm sure I'll never come, and I shift just a little and it knocks over this mop and THAT knocks this shelf down and it and all these empty buckets come down right on my head! And I'm just thinking, I'm getting head from a man, in Amsterdam, and it's happening in a broom closet and there's janitorial supplies falling everywhere...This is the biggest cliché _ever_. And Bono stops to laugh and when he's let his guard down I do up my trousers and drag him out of there. There was a woman standing right there, I think she was an intern. And Bono's giggling like a maniac and I tell her, Sorry, thought this was the door to the editing room. And we just bolt out of there.

BONO: [Is laughing uncontrollably.]

EDGE: It's _not funny_. We didn't make love for two weeks. I was terrified I would be attacked by a bottle of Windex.

BONO: What is being with a man like, compared to being with a woman?

EDGE: Oh, it's like night and day, really. With a man, the pleasure is...well I don't know if I should say it's BETTER, but it's certainly more immediate. Because you already know each other well, in a sense.

BONO: In a physical sense.

EDGE: Right. A man knows what feels good to another man without having to be told...I mean, to an extent. Of course everyone has different erogenous zones. But the basic stuff is always there. With a woman, you've got to experiment and discuss and test...which can be fun, [grins] and in the end it's quite rewarding. But sometimes you want to have an immediate...sometimes you want to be able to leave things unsaid. To have an unspoken bond.

BONO: Something that feels like a secret.

EDGE: A secret.

BONO: When did you first become attracted to men?

EDGE: I've never been attracted to a man besides Bono.

BONO: You're an indefatigable monogamist.

EDGE: I suppose so. Bono is a very different sort of person, though. He transcends... [Struggles to find a word, but can only make a "levitation" gesture.] I was not there to actually see his arrival on planet Earth...I can't say for sure he didn't catch a ride here from someplace else. It's not that he really acts like he's from Mars or anything, quite the contrary. He's almost _too_ human. Sometimes I think he's spying on us Earthlings. Perhaps he was sent here on a covert mission and he was taught how to act like a person and he's overdoing it. He plays out every story in the human drama with incredible fervor in order to convince the rest of us that he's a native. [Smiles.] I hope he's human. It would make me prouder to be a member of the human race. I've gotten used to him over the years, and there's things he does that I take for granted. Sometimes, though...sometimes I think about him and it dawns on me just how amazing he really is, and how lucky I am to have him.

BONO: [Turns camera off.] That was wonderful. You did great.

EDGE: Can I put my clothes on now?

BONO: No.

EDGE: Em...Why not?

[Bono puts down the camera and retrieves a soft leather briefcase, from which he pulls out another cassette.]

BONO: I lied to you. [He rifles through the briefcase a moment more.] I didn't steal two tapes, I stole three.

EDGE: What's the third one for?

BONO: [Begins setting up a tripod.] For what we're about to do together....


End file.
